The recent Ebola crisis in West Africa demonstrated that the world is woefully unprepared to deal with pandemics. Antimicrobial resistance and drug-resistant strains of HIV/Aids, TB, diarrhoeal disease, pneumonia and malaria also pose an increasingly serious threat to public health. These are diseases of poverty: 95% of cases are found in low-income countries and among poor and marginalised populations in middle-income countries. They also fuel the cycle of poverty, exacting a heavy economic toll on affected families, which imposes a significant growth penalty on entire regions.
Failure to act now will lead to long-term costs. The World Bank has estimated that without additional investment, these diseases will push an additional 28.3 million people into poverty, increase global healthcare costs by $1.2tn and cost low-income countries more than 5% of GDP by 2050. This is not a developing-world issue. Around 12 million US citizens live with at least one poverty-related disease. Governments need to do more to protect vulnerable communities at home and abroad.
That’s why this week in Berlin we are calling on G20 health ministers to commit long-term investment to pandemic preparedness, poverty related and neglected diseases (PRNDs) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Our call to action also urges G20 countries to pool their public health and scientific expertise, and coordinate their financing of research and development for drugs, diagnostics, vaccines and other health technologies. Meeting the health targets among the UN sustainable development goals will require sustained investment and political will. As representatives of the world’s largest and wealthiest economies, G20 leadership is vital if we are to successfully reduce the global disease burden, lift millions out of poverty and avert billions of dollars in economic and social costs.
The Sabin Vaccine Institute, Sovereign Strategy, PATH, Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), the TB Alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Coalitions (CEPI) UNITAID, CARB-X, the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC) and the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT)
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• This page was amended on 28 April 2017 to correct the name of one of the signatories.
